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United States Consumer Confidence December 2016

United States: U.S. consumer confidence climbs to highest level since 2001 in December

December 29, 2016

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index climbed to a 15-year high of 113.7 in December (November: 109.4), in a sign that U.S. consumers are more optimistic about the future of the economy and that the post-election boost in confidence has continued. The result also overshot the 109.0 that the markets had expected.

December’s outstanding result was mainly driven by rising U.S. consumers’ optimism about the country’s economic prospects, the sub-indicator for which jumped to the highest level since December 2003. Other details of the report were somewhat softer. The sub-index measuring households’ perceptions of present economic conditions dropped relative to November. The labor differential—the difference between the percentage of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—also declined from the previous month.

According to the Conference Board, the improvement in December reflects a “post-election surge in optimism for the economy, jobs, and income prospects.”

FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists expect private consumption to have grown 2.6% in 2016, which is down 0.1 percentage points from last month’s forecast. For 2017, the panel sees private consumption increasing 2.5%, which is unchanged from last month’s projection.

Author:Ricardo Aceves, Senior Economist

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Retail sales unexpectedly dropped 0.3% from the previous month in January, sharply contrasting the 0.3% month-on-month increase that market analysts had expected, as well as the downwardly revised flat reading recorded in December (previously reported: +0.4% month-on-month).